In giving this little book (it has been greatly amplified, and its last printing edited by the late Richard Haehl of Stuttgart,-W.) through the result of much labor, the author is influenced only be a desire to introduce a more judicious and rational system of domestic practice, and to put the community on their guard against the glaring absurdities of the old system of physic, as at present practiced, and, in too many cases, obstinately persevered in.
As to domestic world in general, we might mention Ruddock’s Family Guide, and that of Laurie, which has gone through something like forty-two editions. Then there is also Guernsey’s Domestic Practice, Johnson’s Therapeutic Key, and a work published a good many years ago by Dr. Anna T. Lovering, librarian of Boston University School of Medicine. And these various works had, a predicted by our British reviewer so long ago, very extensive sales, and were widely read everywhere. As for example, Hering, according to Dr. Calvin B. Knerr, in his recent work, The Life of Hering, states that there has been already seven American, two English, fourteen German editions; and it has been translated into French, Italian, Danish, Hungarian, Russian and Spanish; and finally the latest printing edited by Haehl as above mentioned.
Contrast with these time honored treatises of domestic homoeopathic practice the legion of orthodox domestic works, most noteworthy in recent years being that of the late Dr. Richard Cabot, entitled A Layman’s Handbook of Medicine. There is a recent textbook by Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, for the elucidation of modern medicine for the laity Modern Home Medical Adviser.; then there are the syndicated columns in current newspapers; radio and health center talks, that the public may not fail to be enlightened on current medical topics, and adequately informed upon the latest facts or fiction of so- called medical science, not forgetting such illuminating works as Glendenning’s The Human Body; and that most amazing of foreign translations, Dr. Kurtz Kahn’s Man in Structure and Function (recently reviewed in Life Magazine for April 19, 1943). Qui bono?
Is it that the lay mind thus educated will be the more interested in the intricacies of the now popularly out-moded Hahnemannic method? In truth it is traditional in our annals that this same (enlightened?) public was so unfamiliar with the Hahnemannian method in therapeutics that it was commonly spoken of by the unlearned as “home-pathy.” Acting upon this popular misconception the late Dr. Charles F. Nichols, for a number of years associated with Dr. William P. Wesselhoeft, both of Boston, compiled a small monograph entitled Home Made Treatment, dealing with fifteen of the most commonly used remedies; and he prefaces his little work with cautions as to dosage, avoidance of “strong acids, tea, coffee, spices, all stimulants, saleratus, perfumery, strong smelling disinfectants, plasters, ointments, gargles, and all other medicines must be avoided”.
Dr. Nichols in his naive manner relates, in defense of Hahnemann’s discoveries, that:.
It is related, in the Chinese Empire, that a burden was often carried suspended from a stick, by two men; until a certain individual discovered that one man could carry two baskets, suspended from either end of one stick, with comparative ease. He was instantly put to death, not being of the caste of the Inventors; but this invention is now generally adopted by the less conservative in that country.
What, be it recalled, is that reference–“and certain vermin killed Socrates”? This much for an almost vanished period in our medical history.
But what with the coming of the antiseptic and aseptic eras, the use of sera, antitoxins and bacterial antigens (which many believe to be but a crude application of the Hippocratic- Hallerian principle of like by / to like, and the development of modern chemotherapy, we are confronted with entirely new conditions under which to promulgate and foster our gentle art of healing.
With the founding of the American Red Cross and similar humanitarian movements, especially fostered in the American Civil War, the Crimean War, and the first great World War, there came about a system of almost universal training in first aid work; and the present global conflict, all the young and active of the nation (not already inducted into selective service) have taken courses in Red Cross First Aid, air-plane spotting, as bomb fighters, air and wardens, etc., etc.; and it would be the exception rather than the rule, not to encounter such signally placed placards as the following (posted in the New York Interurban subway cars):.
Learn to keep your family well. One-third of our doctors and nurses are off to war. Learn to watch for the first signs of illness and to care for the patient. Red cross will teach you home nursing. Home Nursing American Red Cross.
Similar placards are posted elsewhere. The public is not only instructed in this type of home nursing, but is encouraged, through wide-spread dissemination of the use of blood transfusions, blood plasma, etc., to give and to give generously of their precious life blood, which in Hahnemann’s time was considered so injurious to the patient in most types of inflammation, that blood-letting was not only encouraged, but physicians who failed to make use of this method of treatment (and this was particularly noted in the case of the maligned followers of Hahnemann) were not only discredited but persecuted.
What are the means at our immediate disposal to combat this rapidly growing paternalism, state medicine, or by whatever name the panel system may be designated? In simple language, we must return to a campaign of re-education of the public, in so far as possible, and of our homoeopathic patients in particular, in the simple and abiding tenets of homoeopathy. It might be well to mention at this point that for long homoeopathic pharmacies were accustomed to issue small booklets, giving an index of the usual disorders of childhood and adults as well, with rules for the use of their indicated remedies.
Of late, however, this has become impossible, and remedies can be sold only on a physician’s prescription or under his directions. In order to overcome this difficulty the firm of Boericke & Tafel, for example, has issued a very illuminating monograph entitled The Little Homoeopathic Physician, which has been carefully edited by Dr. William Gutman of New York, which amply meets not only the remedial indications for ordinary complaints, but includes careful directions for first aid, with hints as to diet and general household regime.
Some years ago it was suggested to me that it might be in order to write a small but comprehensive work on materia medica for nurses; and this book was first published in 1917, under the imprint of Woodside Publishing Co.; and it was gotten out under the direction of the late Dr. Frank W. Patch of Woodside Cottages, Framingham, Massachusetts. Curiously enough, Dr. Patch, schooled as he was in the sanitarium idea and the problems of nursing, was not convinced of the wisdom or utility of such a book, until the success of the venture won him over to the need of the education of nurses along this particular line.
Then he was enthusiastic in his praise of the idea. The first edition was followed by a second issue in revised form, published by Ehrhart & Karl of Chicago, who now list it as a work for students and laymen as well. In respect to the education of the lay public, nowhere in the world is more being done than in England, through the activities of the British Homoeopathic Association; and this chiefly through the activities of their Missionary School of Medicine, which has sent its emissaries to all parts of the Empire. No pretense is made by these graduates to practice medicine in the ordinary sense, they merely render such first aid as can be successfully carried out by no other known means.
In this connection it is well to call attention to the fact that, with the completion of the editorship of Dr. Margaret Tyler’s Homoeopathy, that splendid journal has lately been superseded by a combined lay-professional magazine, entitled Health Through Homoeopathy, and published under the auspices of the B. H. A. Among other interesting papers is a recent contribution by Dr. H. Fergie Woods, Homoeopathy in the Home, This number also contains an excellent paper by Dr. J. W. Waffensmith of New Haven, U. S. A., first president of the Pan – American Homoeopathic Union, on the lay movement in America. giving the indication for some commonly used remedies in household complaints; and as an interesting sequel is the report by a lay mother entitled I Brought My Child up on Homoeopathy. (August number of the journal.)
The Homoeopathic Recorder, and Ellis Barker’s journal, Heal Thyself, which succeeded The Homoeopathic World, formerly edited for many years by Dr. John H. Clarke, and other journals have published lay departments from time to time.
Benjamin Collins Woodbury was born August 13, 1882, at Patten, Maine. He was the son of Dr. Benjamin Collins, a homeopathic physician, and Matidle Albina (Knowles). He attended Patten Academy and received his M.D. from Boston University Medical School in 1906. Following graduation Dr. Woodbury began his practice in Lewiston and Winthrop, Maine, and in 1907 moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he practiced for the next nine years. Dr. Woodbury married Miss Gertrude Fancis O'Neill of Boston at Eliot, Maine on June 18, 1915.
In March, 1919, Dr. Woodbury left the Islands and located in San Francisco where he practiced for two years and then returned to the East and established a practice in Boston. He was a trustee and a member of the staff of the Hahnemann Hospital, Boston, and in 1947 was elected president if the International Hahnemann Institute, Washington, D.C. He also gave many lectures on homeopathy at Boston University and at postgraduate sessions of the American foundation of Homeopathy.
Dr. Woodbury died on January 22, 1948, in Boston at the age of 65.
The doctor was the author of "Materia Medica for Nurses", published in 1922 and of many articles in medical journals in England, India, and the United States. Dr. Woodbury was also a writer of plays and poetry.